| Stock Code: B14201B | | Publisher Code: 9781844256891 | | ISBN 13: 9781844256891 | | Published: 2009 | | Pages: 240 | | Dimensions: 160x240mm | | Illustrations: Hard Bound, b/w ill |
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Book Description
This is the remarkable true story of how one of Japan's biggest motorcycle manufacturers stole a Nazi rocket scientist's engine secrets from behind the Iron Curtain to win the motorcycle power race and conquer the world.
The Ernst Degner affair is bike racing's greatest-ever story and had an incalculable effect on the world of speed, transforming the two-stroke motorcycle from cheap runabout to the weapon of choice for grand prix winners and speed- crazed street riders.
When former Nazi rocket scientist Walter Kaaden used 'doodlebug' flying bomb technology to build lightning-quick two-stroke race bikes for MZ, he was poised to grab world championship glory for East Germany's Communist Party, which was hell-bent on proving that communism could outperform capitalism. Instead MZ's star rider Ernst Degner fled to the West at the height of his battle for the 1961 world championship. Degner took with him the two-stroke secrets of Kaaden - one of the 20th century's greatest engine geniuses - and sold it to struggling Japanese manufacturer Suzuki, which won the two-stroke's first world title the following year.
Suzuki, then Yamaha and Kawasaki, used Kaaden's know-how to build world-dominating race bikes and create legendary street machines that made Japan the global force in motorcycling. Even avowed four-stroke marques Honda and Harley-Davidson eventually ripped off some of Kaaden's genius to win world championship glory.
Here is the whole extraordinary story, from the death-defying antics of the era's devil-may-care grand prix racers to Degner's battle for world title glory, his James Bond-style escape from the Communists and finally his lonely, mysterious death.
About The Author
Author Mat Oxley is a writer and former motorcycle racer. He won the 1985 Isle of Man 250 production TT and finished third in the 1986 world endurance championship. He has been writing about motorcycle racing for more than 25 years and is author of Haynes' acclaimed biographies of modern-day motorcycling kings Valentino Rossi and Mick Doohan.
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